High-end restaurant, cooking demo center coming to former bank

Monday

Sep 3, 2018 at 6:35 PMSep 3, 2018 at 6:39 PM

The new owners of a former bank in downtown Gastonia are fine-tuning more details of their plans to redevelop it.

That has included pinning down a name for the upscale restaurant they plan to open on the ground floor at 212 W. Main Ave. The new venue, to be called The Fed, will play off the financial legacy of the former Citizens National Bank building.

“I had that thought in the beginning,” said Jim Morasso, one of three people behind the ownership group known as CNB1920 LLC.

Beyond the moniker on the marquee, they’ll also go to great lengths to design the interior in the same spirit. That will include a technique Morasso employed at Webb Custom Kitchen – the other successful restaurant he owns in downtown Gastonia.

“I’ve already got $3 million in shredded currency from the federal reserve in Charlotte, in my possession, that we’ll incorporate at The Fed,” he said. “We’ll do something similar to what we did at Webb where we took old film and backlit it.

“The idea will be to make the building interactive.”

Investing in downtown

Morasso, Tom Cox and a third silent partner formed CNB1920 last year. The company title incorporates the acronym of the bank’s name and the year it was built.

While Morasso is bringing his restaurant expertise and real estate knowledge to the table, Cox is doing the same from his longtime career as a builder and veteran contractor. Cox maintains the office and showroom for his Charlotte Cabinetry business in the historic Standard Hardware building on South Street, which he bought three years ago. Both men have invested heavily in downtown Gastonia in the last few years, and become more involved in shaping its future, based on their belief that it is primed to become a real destination.

The demonstrated that faith last year in offering to buy the Citizens National Bank from the city of Gastonia for $324,800, and committing more than $1.8 million of improvements to the property over the next three years. The city is financing the purchase over six years at 3.75 percent interest.

From its end, the city is offering a three-year grant based on expenditures resulting from the project, such as utility revenues, tap fees, permits, and the increased taxes it anticipates receiving. The city has estimated its grant will end up amounting to about $271,000.

Comprehensive plan

The former bank is made up of four adjoining buildings spanning four levels, including a basement, with a total of 30,000 square feet. It has a tax value of about $650,000, and has been home to the Gaston County Art Guild and Arts on Main for the last seven years, though those entities are moving out by Oct. 1.

City leaders accepted the CNB1920 offer based on the creative new things Cox and Morasso have promised – and are now contractually obligated --- to create there by the end of 2020. In addition to the street-level restaurant, they plan to create a 4,800-square-foot Thermador cooking and wine demonstration center on the second floor, with interactive classrooms and teaching areas. On the top level, they’re carving out space for apartments and live-work studios for artists, along with an open area for an art gallery.

There are even big plans for the lower level of the building.

“The basement will be a jazz club/wine bar kind of thing called The Night Repository,” said Cox. “Because that’s where all the bank’s night repository boxes were held.”

Pushing the bar higher

Wagner Murray Architects of Charlotte has been enlisted to help design the interior, including the space that will become The Fed. Demolition has been well underway upstairs, and workers recently pulled away a suspended ceiling that was installed decades ago to cover up an original skylight on the roof of the bank.

Morasso said he still feels confident in the established three-year window for getting everything done, and more visible progress is just around the corner.

“I think we can have the art gallery and art studios done by the early part of next year, and the two live-work condos upstairs done in the first quarter of next year,” he said. The cooking and wine demonstration area I think can be done by the middle of next year.”

The biggest undertaking will be the 100- to 120-seat restaurant, which Morasso expects will require a $2 million investment all by itself. To distinguish it from Webb Custom Kitchen and other eateries downtown, it will have a higher price point than Gastonia is used to seeing.

“Webb has shown an ability to support middle-income dining,” he said. “I know some guests in Gastonia might think that’s too exclusive. But I have to attract the next person or developer that wants to build something in downtown Gastonia, and show them downtown can support it.”

You can reach Michael Barrett at 704-869-1826 or on Twitter @GazetteMike.

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